Smith: False advertising: Voters have been deceived

Smith: False advertising: Voters have been deceived

November 25th, 2013by By Robin Smith
in Opinion Columns

Robin Smith

Robin Smith

Photo by
Contributed Photo
/Times Free Press.

Last year, a California shoemaker agreed to a $40 million settlement after charges were brought by the Federal Trade Commission based on "unfounded claims" resulting in "deceived consumers." These customers were led to believe that after purchasing and wearing the "rocker-bottom" athletic shoes, their gluteus maximus would shrink and tone just like celebrities, Kim Kardashian and football great Joe Montana.

From the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post, articles were published to direct those defrauded on "how to get your piece of the $40 million" from the Skechers company, guilty of lying to sell a product, gain market share and make money.

Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012 on unfounded claims designed to deceive voters, to sell his product and control the money of this nation.

Let's take a look at promises made vs. the truth.

Have insurance premiums been cut for the average family by $2,500? Well, if you only account for the millions who have received a cancellation notice and have no coverage, yes, I suppose Obama and the Democrats have reduced premium costs.

Has Medicare, the health care program funded by the deduction of payroll taxes of the individual and employer, been strengthened? Well, $716 billion will be taken from the Medicare trust fund to be applied to Obamacare, from 2013 through 2022. A new 3.8 percent Medicare tax is now in effect on some investment income earned by higher-income Americans. I suppose that strengthens the seniors' resolve somehow.

The claim first made in the 2008 election to cut unemployment to 5.4 percent was softened in the 2012 to "put more people back to work" has failed. The U.S. has a real unemployment rate that includes the underemployed, of 13.8% for October 2013.

The U.S. labor force participation rate has same number of people working that were employed when Jimmy Carter was president, with allegations being investigated at the Census Bureau that workers were pressured to complete employment surveys and did so fraudulently in September 2012 during the height of political season.

The declaration of a "transparent" Obama Administration was to promise integrity and honesty in our federal government. That is completely at odds with the use of the IRS to target Christian groups, tea party organizations, and pro-Israel groups that served to choke out election-year activity that would oppose the Democrats.

The Sept. 11, 2012, attack on Benghazi was perpetrated as the result of a ridiculous YouTube video to hide the planned terrorist attack that has now been revealed. So much for transparency and national security; let's just hide incompetence once again through fraud.

Obama's sweeping statement that "As long as I am President of the United States, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon" is now laughable as Israel views Obama's secret deals with the rogue nation for the last year to weaken economic sanctions as dangerous. Israel's Minister of Economy and Commerce Naftali Bennett warned on Nov. 18 that if the U.S. continues in these negotiations with Iran the terrorist state will be "able to manufacture a bomb in six weeks."

There are more "promises" that are nothing short of lies that have been made by Obama and any number of politicians to win elections.

For deceptive claims that were made over the airwaves during 2012 that directly impacted the election and those now that have "deceived consumers" this year that "if you like your plan, you can keep it -- period," I'm just curious: Will the FTC hear complaints and act as they did with the shoe company?

Robin Smith served as chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party, 2007 to 2009. She is a partner at the SmithWaterhouse Strategies business development and strategic planning firm and serves on Tennessee's Economic Council on Women.